Being happy is a duty

It is far easier to be unhappy than to be happy.
All it takes is waiting, watching, weighing every moment like a capricious nobleman expecting his jesters to finally entertain him at 6 p.m. But those who see life this way, who live in constant expectation of pleasure or happiness, end up feeling only boredom.
Alain tells us:

"It is not hard to be unhappy or dissatisfied;
you simply need to sit down, like a prince waiting to be amused; that gaze which watches and measures happiness like a commodity casts the color of boredom over everything; not without a certain majesty, for there is a kind of power in scorning all offerings; but I also see in it impatience and anger toward those ingenious craftsmen who make happiness out of very little, like children making gardens.
I flee.
Experience has taught me well enough that those who are bored with themselves cannot be distracted." ¹

And a little later, he continues:

"[…] it is always difficult to be happy;
it is a battle against many events and many people; one may well be defeated; there are certainly insurmountable events and misfortunes stronger than the apprentice Stoic; but perhaps the clearest duty is not to declare oneself defeated before having fought with all one’s strength.
And above all, what seems evident to me is that one cannot be happy unless one wills it; therefore, one must will happiness and make it.
What is not said enough is that being happy is also a duty toward others. It’s often said that only those who are happy are loved; but we forget that this reward is just and deserved; for misfortune, boredom, and despair linger in the air we all breathe; and so we owe gratitude and a victor’s crown to those who digest the miasmas and, in a sense, purify the shared life through their energetic example.
There is nothing deeper in love than the vow to be happy.
What is harder to bear than the boredom, sadness, or despair of those we love? Every man and every woman should constantly remember that happiness—the kind one conquers for oneself—is the most beautiful and generous offering there is.
I would even propose a civic crown to reward those who choose to be happy. For, in my opinion, all these corpses, and all these ruins, and all this reckless spending, and these preemptive offensives, are the work of men who never knew how to be happy and cannot bear that others try to be." ²

In the end, how many ruins, how many wars and rages, are the work of those who never learned how to be happy and cannot stand to see others succeed at it? Unhappiness, Alain tells us, breeds destruction, whereas happiness builds. This is why choosing to be happy is not a whim, but an act of resistance, and above all, an offering to others, to the world, and perhaps
the noblest of commitments.

So, if we must will happiness, it is not only for ourselves, for our own comfort or for the satisfaction of knowing we are happy. According to Alain, and also in the spirit of Stoic morality, we belong to something larger than ourselves: a couple, a family, a community, friends, our fellow human beings, the universe. And with all of them, we bear a responsibility, a duty toward each and every one of them, not to imagine that happiness is ours alone, some kind of selfish private enjoyment we grant ourselves in a corner. No: it is a light that shines beyond us, a fire that warms those around us, a burden lifted for those we love, a state that contributes, in fact, to the balance of the world.

How many lives have been broken by the contagious sadness of a bitter father, a disillusioned mother, a friend who no longer believed in anything?
How many children have grown up under low skies—not because of the world’s misfortunes, but because those meant to protect them had given up on joy?

This is why choosing one’s own happiness is far more than a whim: It is an offering, the most beautiful and the most generous.
Because every sincere smile,
every burst of joy,
every moment of inner peace,
spreads something essential.
This is how we build,
how we uplift,
how we pass on.
To be happy is not only a personal choice. It is a duty to those who love us and whom we love.